Fernandez bucks the trend -- back for another expected sell-out

Vicente Fernandez is an enduring icon of traditional Mexican ranchera music. Apparently, he's also immune to the phenomenon of an economic downturn.

Tony Sauro

Vicente Fernandez is an enduring icon of traditional Mexican ranchera music. Apparently, he's also immune to the phenomenon of an economic downturn.

For the third year in a row, Fernandez - who turned 69 on Tuesday and still is setting attendance records - is expected to sell out Stockton Arena for his 2009 Mother's Day show.

Tickets for the May 10 concert go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday. The prices range from $55 to $200.

"We expect it to sell out even faster than last year," said Fred Godinez III, the show's promoter (F&Y Entertainment Inc.). He predicts overnight campers and long lines at the arena again.

"I'm amazed we were still able to keep a Stockton date."

That's because Fernandez, with two very popular albums still high on the sales charts, has reduced the number of shows on his 2009 U.S. tour from 26 to 19, eliminating some major cities (Miami) and Central Valley stops such as Fresno.

He'll be doing only three shows in Northern California, playing May 9 at the Cow Palace in Daly City before his Stockton performance. He'll play a May 23 show in Bakersfield and one Nov. 27 in San Jose.

Godinez said Fernandez - a native of Huentitan de Alto, Mexico, whose 55-year career has included 50 albums and 40 movies - is substituting shows in Central and South America for some of his traditional U.S. dates.

"His popularity has just increased tremendously," Godinez said, attributing that in part to the success of Fernandez's most recent albums, "Para Siempre" (2007) and "Primera Fila" (2008), which was recorded live in Mexico.

"The thing that most kept him wanting to come back (to Stockton) is the initial response he got here in 2007. He got five encores and just would not leave. People thought he was crazy."

Fernandez, who attracts entire families, sold out that 9,500-capacity show May 13, 2007. With a different stage configuration, he sold all 11,212 tickets for his May 11, 2008, Mother's Day show in a theater-in-the-round format.

There'll be 9,500 seats available this year. Fernandez and his band will perform on a full 40-by-60-foot stage.

"Hands down, this is the largest production ever at our own shows," Godinez said. "It will be the largest Stockton has ever seen. They have seven trucks and all the video screens and lighting."

It won't hurt that Maribel Guardia, a 48-year-old telenovela star and singer known for her sex appeal, will be opening.

In 2007, there were 5,764 Fernandez tickets sold in the first 48 hours. Last year, 4,500 were bought in the first two hours, and the show sold out in 16 days.

In 2007, Godinez said, 33 percent of the tickets were sold outside San Joaquin County. That number jumped to 63 percent last year, 40 percent of those sold in the Sacramento area, where Fernandez didn't perform.

While saying almost all 600 tickets priced at $200 this year "are gone" to pre-sale customers, Godinez said he's received some criticism about high ticket prices ("Why are you doing this to our people?").

He said the majority of the 9,500 tickets cost $55.

"Last year, Vicente did 82 songs in four hours," said Godinez, 39, who's president of Stockton General Insurance Services Inc. and has helped produce 49 Fernandez shows since 2005. "That's 40 cents a song. It's all relative. We could charge probably less and take it to an open-air show at UOP and only do 90 minutes.

"But we wanted to give people something to remember. Vicente never leaves them wanting more. He leaves them content."

That must have been the case on Valentine's Day, four days before his 69th birthday. Fernandez, who holds the attendance record at the Cow Palace (14,306), eclipsed Shakira and Mana by drawing a crowd of 217,000 to Mexico City's Zocalo.